I was wondering, what are peoples thoughts on
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz?, I've seen some of his books in the bookstores over here, I think, one was
'Essential Talmud' and I think another was
'The Thirteen Pettaled Rose'. Both seemed quite cool, from the very little I was able to read of them in Waterstones (a main bookstore here), but, I'd like other peoples opinions of him, and/or maybe those books.
I probably should've asked before, because I'm thinking of maybe getting one of them today, when I go into central London in a minute, but, if it gets negative comments, I can always return it.
Thanks for any help.
Don't return Steinsaltz! He is invaluable! He is one of the greatest living minds in Judaism, and has been a priceless wellspring of teaching. His specialties are Talmud and Hasidut (Hasidic thought), though he has written very effectively on prayer and on Kabbalah also, and guides for
baalei teshuvah (secular Jews newly come to observance-- they're handy for Jews By Choice, too) and one or two pieces of popular philosophy which aren't his best work, though there's certainly much worse popular philosophy out there. He hasn't written as much on Kabbalah, but
The Thirteen Petalled Rose is a lovely little book, and his trilogy of books explaining and commenting on the Alter Rebbe's (the first rebbe of Lubavitch, Reb Shneur Zalman of Liady) classic
Tanya are key for beginners to comprehend the book and the Rebbe's teachings. He does have two books of retellings of some of the Kabbalistic stories of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov; but to be honest, as good as they are, they're not as good as Aryeh Kaplan's two books of translation and commentary of Rebbe Nachman's stories. Steinsaltz's several discourses on Hasidic thought are good, too.
He has a
Guide to Jewish Prayer which is very nicely done, and I think better than the standard
To Pray As A Jew by HH Donin.
Teshuvah: Guide For The Newly Observant Jew and
The Miracle of the Seventh Day: Guide to the Spiritual Meaning, Significance, and Practice of the Jewish Sabbath are both very good books, although deeply Orthodox in viewpoint and style. Nonetheless, both are tremendously worth having, and are valuable resources.
Steinsaltz's magnum opus is actually an edition of the Talmud wherein his personal commentary offers translation of all the Aramaic into Hebrew, and the Aramaic text is punctuated and vocalized with vowels, punctuation is added to Rashi's commentary, and Steinsaltz himself adds marginalia giving translations of foreign words used the text, or Rashi's use of medieval French, or describing flora and fauna referred to by the Rabbis, and so forth. Once you have some mastery of Hebrew, this text will be an enormous blessing for you, as it is for most of us-- even those of us who are generally able to study the traditional Aramaic on its own. I believe a couple of tractates have been further translated into English, under Steinsaltz's auspices, but only a few. Still, if you can find them, they are incredibly worth having, as they offer a broader and less insular translation that the Schottenstein Talmud from Artscroll (although that's also useful and good, if often deeply biased by the need to make the Talmud text conform to later interpretations of it), and far more accessible than the Soncino translation, which reads like a book of English law (probably because it was translated by a group of Talmud scholars who were also English lawyers).
The Essential Talmud is a very good introductory book to the learning of Talmud; and his
Talmudic Images is a nice little collection of stories about some of the famous Rabbis of the Talmud.
Steinsaltz, who actually changed his name to Even-Yisrael (which is just Hebrew for Steinsaltz) several years ago when one of his sons fell gravely ill (name-changing during severe illness as a means to trick the angel of death into not taking the ill one is an old, old folk custom among Ashkenazi Jews, now only done among the Haredi communities), is a Haredi, but he is open-minded, and willing to talk to and teach non-Haredi Jews, and in general he has been very good about tolerance, seeing his role primarily as a teacher of Torah to all, and not as a posek (halakhic judge)-- though he has written some fine, if Haredi, responsa-- and surely not as a politician, which rabbis in Israel all too often seem to do.
